Page:Field Poems of Childhood.djvu/100

 We used to sneak off swimmin' in those careless, boyish days, And come back home of evenings with our necks and backs ablaze; How mother used to wonder why our clothes were full of sand, But father, having been a boy, appeared to understand. And, after tea, he 'd beckon us to join him in the shed Where he'd proceed to tinge our backs a deeper, darker red; Say what we will of mother's, there is none will controvert The proposition that our father's lickings always hurt!

For mother was by nature so forgiving and so mild That she inclined to spare the rod although she spoiled the child; And when at last in self-defence she had to whip us, she Appeared to feel those whippings a great deal more than we! But how we bellowed and took on, as if we'd like to die— Poor mother really thought she hurt, and that's what made her cry! Then how we youngsters snickered as out the door we slid, For mother's whippings never hurt, though father's always did.

In after years poor father simmered down to five feet four, But in our youth he seemed to us in height eight feet or more! Oh, how we shivered when he quoth in cold, suggestive tone: "I'll see you in the woodshed after supper all alone!"